UKC

The delicate noise of bat wings brought me slowly to consciousness too early this morning. How the devil it got into the house I know not. After opening the verandah door I expected it to fly straight out - but it continued to do circuits. Finally I saw quite distinctly - it detected the open door, change course and exit.

France24 is a mainstream TV channel in France. This documentary - released in Jan 2019 - takes a journey into Madagascar - to see how local doctors are working with a herbal remedy for malaria. The plant is artemisia annua - Sweet Wormwood.

The dynamics around it's usage are identical to that of the current chloroquine debate - because no formal tests have proved acceptable to mainstream medicine. Are you ready to remap reality ?

English, some subtitles, 40mins

https://www.france24.com/en/20190111-reporters-plus-malaria-business-big-ph...

I think your reality is remapped quite enough already...

A bat managed to get into our bedroom by emerging from a gap in the floorboards. I have no idea how it got there.

I don’t understand your point about chloroquine. It is a proven treatment for malaria but resistance has developed, as explained in the documentary. I don’t think the WHO doubt the efficacy of artemisia extract, as it’s approved in ACTs, but that they are against the use of uncontrolled herbal medicines.

Bats. Lovely creatures...but they may yet be further implicated in further Covid mutation. I have nothing concrete on this - and watchful of innuendo and sensationalism - so will dig a bit more, as it might simply be one of those ridiculous grapevine things. Maybe I can be put right by more knowledgeable people on here?
 

It’ll be a terrible shame if it dies become scapegoated as such - one of the wonders of the natural world.

I did find this:

https://www.bats.org.uk/about-bats/bats-and-disease/covid-19-and-bats

The anti-malarial properties of artimesia are well known in the medicinal-chemistry community. I used to work with a chap who ran a research group extracting the anti-malarial molecules from it and testing them formally. Can't remember what the results were I got a job somewhere else. Not everything is a conspiracy! 

What are your views on the hydroxychloroquine trial being stopped?

Eh? Artemisinin is widely used for malaria and has been for years so I don't really understand this comment.

https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drug/artemether-with-lumefantrine.html

Artemisia has been fully investigated with formal tests and licensed medications developed from it, These are widely used in "mainstream medicine"

I wasn't permitted to look at your link !

// The NICE British National Formulary (BNF) sites is only available to users in the UK, Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories. //

So, i don't know the status for UK but the documentary is french - and in France (well - it seems a year ago) it was not authorised - perhaps at the level of state medicine.

The point of the documentary is to demonstrate how effective artemisia is for malaria, but also to expose the evidence how it's usage was blocked, and how more expensive solutions are favored. One such also has alarming side effects - witnessed by the rap-artist Stromae - I'm not so keen on rap but have some new respect for him now! 

Did anyone actually listen / watch right through to the conclusion yet ?

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/the_pub/hydroxychloroquine_anyone-719569

This post follows on from previous discussions - and I'm trying to follow your advice

Have you watched this docu yet ? I can see perfectly - the powers at play in the choice and authorisation of treatments here - and I can see the same powers at play in the covid-19 pandemic.

So you think some 'powers' are involved in stopping the trial? Do you have a belfry? I think that's where the bat has gone.

Interesting about sweet wormwood as Absinth was originally the French equivalent of gin and tonic. 

Colonial drink of retired majors and the like - to help relive /combat malaria

The 2015 Nobel prize for medicine was won by a Chinese researcher who'd been working on artemesin since the 1970s!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_Youyou

Given artemether is on the WHO list of essential medicines, and has been around since the 1980s, I very much expect that it is available in France.

OMS == WHO

FR Quant à l'OMS donc, elle "ne recommande pas l'utilisation de matériel végétal d'A. Annua, sous quelque forme que ce soit, y compris le thé, pour le traitement ou la prévention du paludisme", stipule-t-elle sur son site internet. En effet, comme pour la plupart des herbes médicinales, "la teneur en artémisinine et son efficacité dépendent des conditions climatiques, géographiques et environnementales"

ENG As for the WHO the, it does not reccomend the use of Artemisia anno, under its form as it is - and including , the tea/infusion - for the prevention of malaria, - as stated on their internet site. In effect, as for the majority of herbal medicines " the content of (active ingredient) artemisinine and its efficiency depend on conditions of climate, geographic and environmental."

The evidence exposed in this documentary makes it clear how the WHO puts the brakes on simple and local cost-effective solutions which are not part of it's strategy.

Well worth a watch !

But, had the bat sat on the mat and shat?

reading your extract suggests that the WHO don't recomend using the plant or extracts from the plant as the dosage can vary widely. But does not say that the biologically active component can't be used as a medicine (as in that case the dosage is know and can be controlled)

Quite apart from the technical content of this decision making, the whole raises some bigger questions. Why does any country become subservient to the say-so of another - or any such organisation - in matters of health or medical practice. Why has France been persuaded (ordered ?) to quit using chloroquine under the authority of the Lancet - a British journal - and the prompting of the WHO. France - and most developed western countries - are well capable of making their own decisions. 

And further - since Britain has voted to exit the EC - wouldn't it also be logical to seek its health and medical independence by quitting out of the WHO ? 

France still uses chloroquine for other diseases, and although this was a WHO recomendation, the decision was by the French authorities, they are not 'subservient' & could have taken another approach

As for the UK quitting the WHO, do you also want to leave the UN, NATO etc ?

Yes - that is a v interesting dynamic; during interview Raoult makes clear reference to the WHO 'recommending' which drugs to use - but this appears to translate into an order

Brexit has exposed all the arguments - group security v independence. It has become clear that the WHO umbrella has disadvantages. UN & NATO - thats more to do with military threat isn't it - thats another whole topic. But generally I think the UK would be better off without the america liaison. However far Britain may have erred into neo-liberalism, the states have done it worse !

I'm interested to know WHO shat on what (poetic rhyming licence exercised )

Maybe the WHO can straighten out it's ethics by approving this new herbal cure for covid-19 - direct from Madagascar !

// WHO gets in touch with Madagascar, after country’s president slammed global health body for not endorsing its drug //

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/who-to-study-madagascars-drug-to-treat-covi...

Why, yes ! The french know WHO it is they've named it #Lancetgate

// The Lancet results have begun to unravel—and Surgisphere, which provided patient data for two other high-profile COVID-19 papers, has come under withering online scrutiny from researchers and amateur sleuths //

// Both NEJM and The Lancet should have scrutinized the provenance of Surgisphere’s data more closely before publishing the studies. “Here we are in the middle of a pandemic with hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the two most prestigious medical journals have failed us,” //

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/mysterious-company-s-coronavirus-pa...